Headline: Life-jacket may have saved man By MICHAEL WOOD. Source: Calgary Sun. Tuesday, September 24, 2002 at http://www.canoe.ca/CalgaryNews/cs.cs-09-24-0011.html
A Calgary man who planned to get married in December might be alive today if he had put on a life-preserver before going fishing, RCMP said yesterday. Despite being a poor swimmer, Tony Sequeira, 49, refused to don the life-saving jacket when he and pal William Sattlegger, 44, and Sandy Hrycyk, 42, set out on the choppy waters of Crawling Valley reservoir Sunday. "I'm so devastated because I can't believe it," Sierra Sequeira, the wife of Tony's cousin Dominic, said from her Calgary home. "It is sad because he was going to go to India to get married in December. "It is sad enough but his fiancee is not here and his mom, who is 86 years old, lives in Goa in India." Tony had recently become the vice-president of marketing for Enermarket Solutions Ltd. Tony and Sattlegger set out with Hrycyk, an experienced guide, on Saturday as part of a fishing tour package Sattlegger purchased through a Trout Unlimited silent auction. The men were supposed to return to Calgary on Sunday from the reservoir northeast of Bassano, 100 km east of Calgary. "I didn't know that he didn't know how to swim," a tired and sullen Hrycyk told the Sun. "There were life-jackets in the side of the boat near Tony, but it happened so quick ..." The trio ran into trouble just after 12:30 p.m. Sunday when a gust of wind brought heavy waves crashing into the boat, filling it with freezing water before it capsized. For several agonizing minutes, the men clung desperately to the boat, hoping the craft would wash ashore. Hrycyk pulled Tony from the frigid water and propped him on the underside of a fixed knee brace on the boat's bow, holding him steady as he slipped into unconsciousness. "I held him for as long as I could, then my lungs started filling with water, I had to go, it was taking me under," Hrycyk said. He and Sattlegger made it ashore, as their companion slipped under the water. His body was recovered hours later by Calgary divers, and he was pronounced dead at Bassano hospital. Campers who spotted the men in trouble phoned 911 and helped Hrycyk and Sattlegger ashore. Both were taken to hospital and treated for hypothermia and minor injuries. RCMP said no charges would be laid. "It's just an unfortunate tragedy," said Const. Ted Zadderey of the Bassano detachment. "If he'd been wearing his life-jacket, he might have been alive today." Edn. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet =================================================================== For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead !
